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Deshaun Watson will be sued by two more women
By ALEX RASKIN SPORTS NEWS EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 14:03 EDT, 14 June 2022
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson is expected to be sued by two more women for sexual misconduct, according to the attorney representing the other 24 accusers who have already filed suit against the NFL star.
On Tuesday, Watson stood by previous comments proclaiming his innocence.
'I never assaulted anyone,' Watson said following Tuesday's practice as the Browns held their mandatory minicamp. 'I never harassed anyone or I never disrespected anyone. I never forced anyone to do anything.'
Watson spoke for the first time since March 25, a week after the Browns signed him to a fully guaranteed, five-year, $230 million contract despite his legal situation. Since then, his entanglements have grown with two more women filing lawsuits, bringing the total to 24.
Furthermore, the New York Times reported last week that Watson booked appointments with at least 66 different women over 17 months while he played for the Houston Texans. Previously Watson's attorney estimated he had appointments with about 40 female massage therapists over his five seasons with the Texans, who traded him to Cleveland in March.
Not every woman has accused Watson of sexual misconduct, and 15 have issued statements of support for him at his attorney's request.
Vince McMahon steps down as CEO of WWE amid misconduct investigation
Daughter Stephanie will step into vacated role on interim basis
Michelle Chapman ·
The Associated Press ·
Posted: Jun 17, 2022 9:30 AM ET
Vince McMahon is stepping down as CEO and chairman of WWE during an investigation into alleged misconduct involving the longtime leader and public face of the organization.
McMahon will continue to oversee WWE's creative content during the investigation, World Wrestling Entertainment said Friday, and named McMahon's daughter, Stephanie, as interim CEO and chairwoman.
Vince McMahon will appear on its live show SmackDown later Friday, WWE said on Twitter after it announced the changes in leadership.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that WWE was investigating an alleged $3 million US payment from McMahon to a departing female employee following a consensual affair.
"I have pledged my complete cooperation to the investigation by the special committee, and I will do everything possible to support the investigation," McMahon said in a prepared statement Friday. "I have also pledged to accept the findings and outcome of the investigation, whatever they are."
Employees restricted by NDAs
The employee, hired as a paralegal in 2019, has a separation agreement from January that prevents her from discussing her relationship with McMahon or disparaging him, the Journal reported.
The board's investigation, which started in April, found other, older nondisclosure agreements involving claims by former female WWE employees of misconduct by McMahon and John Laurinaitis, the head of talent relations at WWE, the Journal reported.
The WWE is also investigating actions by Laurinaitis.
Outside of the investigation, WWE said Friday that the company and its special committee will work with an independent third-party to perform a comprehensive review of the work environment at the organization.
Vince McMahon has been the leader and most recognizable face at WWE for decades.
When he purchased what was then the World Wrestling Federation, from his father in 1982, wrestling matches took place at small venues and appeared on local cable channels.
WWE matches are now held in professional sports stadiums and the organization has a sizeable overseas following. It has a broadcast partnership with Saudia Arabian media company MBC Group and performs one to two live pay-per-view shows in Saudi Arabia each year.
There is more to this story at CBC Sports
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Bill Cosby civil trial jury must start deliberations over
By ANDREW DALTON
today
FILE - Bill Cosby arrives for a sentencing hearing following his sexual assault conviction at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown Pa., on Sept. 25, 2018. Eleven months after he was freed from prison, 85-year-old Cosby will again be the defendant in a sexual assault proceeding, this time a civil case in California. Judy Huth, who is now 64, alleges that in 1975 when she was 16, Cosby sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — After two days of deliberations in which they reached verdicts on nearly all of the questions put before them, jurors in a civil trial who were deciding on sexual abuse allegations against Bill Cosby will have to start from scratch on Monday.
By the end of the court day Friday, the Los Angeles County jury had come to agreement on whether Cosby had sexually assaulted plaintiff Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion when she was 16 in 1975, and whether Huth deserved any damages. In all, they had answered eight of nine questions on their verdict form, all but one that asked whether Cosby acted in a way that should require punitive damages.
Judge Craig Karlan, who had promised one juror when she agreed to serve that she could leave after Friday for a prior commitment, decided over the objections of Cosby’s attorneys to accept and read the verdict on the questions the jury had answered. But he had to change course when deputies at the Santa Monica Courthouse appeared and required him to clear the courtroom. The courthouse has a required closure time of 4:30 p.m. because of no budget for deputies’ overtime
Karlan refused to require the departing juror, who had been chosen as foreperson, to return on Monday, so jurors will have to begin again with an alternate in her place.
“I won’t go back on my word,” Karlan said.
It was a bizarre ending to a strange day of jury deliberations. It began with a note to the judge about what he called a “personality issue” between two of the jurors that was making their work difficult.
After calling them to the courtroom and getting them to agree that every juror would be heard in discussions, the jurors resumed, but had a steady flurry of questions on issues with their verdict form that the judge and attorneys had to discuss and answer. One question was on how to calculate damages.
After the lunch break, Cosby lawyer Jennifer Bonjean moved for a mistrial because of a photo taken by a member of Cosby’s team that showed a juror standing in close proximity to a Cosby accuser who had been sitting in the audience and watching the trial.
Karlan said the photo didn’t indicate any conversation had happened, and quickly dismissed the mistrial motion, getting assurances from the juror in question, then the entire jury, that no one had discussed the case with them.
The accuser, Los Angeles artist Lily Bernard, who has filed her own lawsuit against Cosby in New Jersey, denied speaking to any jurors.
“I never spoke to any juror, ever,” Bernard told the judge from her seat in the courtroom. “I would never do anything to jeopardize this case. I don’t even look at them.”
Karlan fought to get past the hurdles and have jurors deliberate as long as possible, and kept lawyers, reporters and court staff in the courtroom ready to bolt as soon as a verdict was read, but it was fruitless in the end.
Jurors had begun deliberating on Thursday morning after a two-week trial.
Cosby, 84, who was freed from prison when his Pennsylvania criminal conviction was thrown out nearly a year ago, did not attend. He denied any sexual contact with Huth in a clip from a 2015 video deposition shown to jurors. The denial has been repeated throughout the trial by his spokesman and his attorney.
In contentious closing arguments, Bonjean urged the jurors to look past the public allegations against Cosby and consider only the trial evidence, which she said did not come close to proving Huth’s case.
Huth’s attorney Nathan Goldberg told jurors Cosby had to be held accountable for the harm he had done to his client.
WACA employed paedophile junior coaching co-ordinatorRoy Wenlock for 29 years
By Russell Jackson
Posted Yesterday at 11:30am
Roy Wenlock in the late 1980s. Wenlock was a junior coach amongst other roles at the WACA.(Supplied: WACA annual reports)
The Western Australian Cricket Association (WACA) created a job for a now-notorious paedophile who subsequently worked for the organisation for 29 years between 1979 and 2007, the WACA has confirmed.
WARNING: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse.
Roy Wenlock, for whom the WACA created the full-time role of 'development officer' in 1979, was one of three sex offenders investigated in WA Supreme Court Justice Peter Blaxell's 452-page parliamentary inquiry into historical child sexual abuse at Anglican hostels, published in 2012.
WACA chief executive Christina Matthews confirmed to ABC Sport that the organisation became aware of Wenlock's offending during the 2012-13 summer and has since taken a range of measures to address the issue, which is the subject of ongoing civil litigation against the WACA.
In Justice Blaxell's report, Wenlock, who died in 2007, was revealed to have been a prolific abuser who gained sexual gratification from "wrestling" sessions — simulated sex in which Wenlock would ejaculate — with boys placed in his care between 1963 and 1977. In some cases, Wenlock's offending escalated to masturbation and oral sex with the boys.
Blaxell's report was also unequivocal in its conclusion that Wenlock's grooming and abuse of boys continued at the WACA.
One of those boys, now a man in his mid-40s, confirmed to ABC Sport that while performing WACA "drinks boy" duties under Wenlock's direction in the late 1980s, he was taken back to Wenlock's house with other boys and witnessed abuse.
Between 1979 and 2007, Wenlock fulfilled a range of roles at the WACA, most of which gave him unsupervised access to children.
For decades, he was the organisation's full-time development officer, conducting junior coaching clinics around the state, and also served as WACA ground announcer, museum curator, and as a WACA pennant umpire. He also umpired in junior competitions and was secretary of the Western Australian Youth Cricket Council.
In 2000, Wenlock received the Australian Sports Medal for services to cricket.
'Whatever you do, don't go to his house'
In 2012, Justice Blaxell concluded there was "ample evidence to show that Wenlock would engage in grooming behaviour" with boys he encountered across his four decades at the WACA.
"In this position he was required to engage in various cricketing activities with young teenagers, and he would sometimes invite individual boys back to his home," Blaxell wrote.
There, Wenlock would "encourage them to engage in 'wrestling'. The reputation that Wenlock acquired as a result of these activities was such that young cricketers would warn their friends: 'whatever you do, don't go to his house'."
'Darren' (not his real name) was not aware of Justice Blaxell's findings when he spoke to ABC Sport, but he was among the boys who were taken from the WACA to Wenlock's house and says what he saw there mirrored the experiences of witnesses in the inquiry.
In 1989, when Darren was in his early teens, Wenlock selected Darren and a male school friend to perform "drinks boy" duties for a Sheffield Shield game at the WACA ground.
Darren said he was excited because the fixture in question — Western Australia vs New South Wales — featured Darren's idols, the Waugh brothers.
Ray Wenlock at a WACA function. Wenlock would encourage young boys to 'wrestle' with him after taking them to his house.
"My mate had done it previously," Darren told ABC Sport.
"I thought, 'This will be awesome'. I was excited because it meant we got to take food into the change rooms for the players and take turns to take the drinks out. It was really cool."
Darren said his discomfort started after play. Wenlock had arranged with parents that Darren, his friend and a few other boys would not be picked up from the WACA, but from Wenlock's house after a swim and some icy poles.
At the house, Darren said, Wenlock encouraged the boys to wrestle him, something that struck Darren as "so unusual and weird" that he declined Wenlock's invitation. Darren said other boys did wrestle Wenlock.
"I found it quite confronting," he said. "And it went on for quite a while."
Darren said that in his eagerness to meet more of his heroes, he volunteered for another day as a drinks boy, but he declined a second invite to Wenlock's house and resolved not to do the job again.
"I was uncomfortable with what was happening," he said.
"I can visualise it, and the feeling I associate with what I saw was that it was very uncomfortable."
There is much more to this story at ABC Australia.
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